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one tactic for helping someone unwind dishonesty that they're all wrapped up in is to hear the reasons for the positions that they hold and it's always best to try to zoom in as much as you can so if they have some sort of complex position try to get them to pin themselves down on one sub portion of that complex position uh cuz otherwise they'll just hop back and forth between things the second you pin them down and make a solid counter argument they'll just jump to something else but one tactic once you've got them narrowed into one specific argument and you've heard their reasons for it is to show them because nine out of 10 times it will be true that they don't actually believe any of their reasons so what happens is when we lie when we willingly lie we lose at least some of our rational capability and the end effect of that is we make really stupid arguments now in our mind because our mind becomes disabled to an extent in in that disabled mind the argument looks like it's solid but for any person who lies less than we do it's as crumbly as as chalk and all you have to do is poke on on it the slightest bit so let me give you a more detailed example of this pattern if you listen to what that reason is extrapolate it to other situations and it's extremely likely that you will find that if they really believe that reason they would have to act not just differently in other situations but in an AB absolutely absurd way in other situations and if you point this out to them the only honest response is for them to withdraw the reason and so piece by piece you can dismantle their argument now if you can't do that then maybe they have a valid reason to have the position that they do or at least you don't have a very strong counter argument you need to work a little hard of course anytime you try to correct someone you should not do that until and unless you are willing to be wrong yourself that's one Hallmark of sincerity is that you're willing to be wrong and if you're not you really can't be too confident about what it is you believe you're just one of these lame apologists apologist is not a good label it's not something anyone should want to be it's something someone whose mind is already made up and they're not actually after truth they're just after being right that's not an admirable thing those people are inherently dishonest